V V V U U U 0 { v U " IF 9 0 -9- -ML 4CG e0" 0.-esdyOctbe 202 C J ack Dorsey speaks with the kind of calmness you'd expect from the creator of two of the most innovative companies in the country. As an originator of Twit- ter and the CEO and founder of Square, the mobile pay- ments juggernaut that's turning established players like MasterCard and Visa into dinosaurs, one has to remain exceedingly levelheaded when pulled between the count- less tasks that come with being a high-tech icon and bil- lionaire. "If you have an idea, get it out of your head," Dorsey says. "Get it into code, get it into conversation, draw it out. That's the best way to actually do something, (because) if you don't get it out of your head, you're going to make excuses for why it can't be done." It isn't the ease with which Dorsey speaks that's surpris- ing. It isn't the "Game of Thrones" theme song that plays before his remarks - a perfect fit for the North Campus computer science crowd. It's the forwardness and respect he affords to students at least a decade younger and innu- merably less successful than himself. The biggest shock is that Dorsev is here at all on this brisk September afternoon. The 35-year-old fields questions about his disinterest in in touch-to-share capability - dismissing it an intermediary technology - and makes jokes about eBay's mismanagement of Paypal. Douglass Elmendorf, the director of the Congressional Budget Office, the nonpartisan agency that provides eco- nomic information to congress, spoke on campus around the same time as Dorsey. Both men are at the very top of their respective spheres of influence. Dorsey is in the exclu- sive club of modern technology giants, alongside the likes of Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg. Elmendorf is one of the country's most important policy- shapers But their visits to the University had one particular dif- ference. Elmendorf was here to lecture on options for reduc- ing the federal deficit. Dorsey was here asking 19-year-old engineers to please, please come work for his company. The pretty girls "Should we put out all the swag?" The question seemed more appropriate for a bat mitzvah than a technical talk called "How To Build a Website." Yelp, the user-generated review website that's become the de facto answer to "Is this restaurant any good?" had a room reserved in the Dow Building after running a booth at the. Engineering Fall Career Fair on North Campus earlier that afternoon. "We're here to talk about some of Yelp's infrastructure and how we scaled from a mom-and-pop website in 2004 to over 78-million monthly (unique users) today," explains Ben Chess, an engineering manager at Yelp and a 2004 Uni- versity alum. Yelp chapstick, Yelp playing cards, Yelp bouncy balls are spread out on a table - yep, put out all the swag (Or maybe it's "schwag?"). A Facebook event for the tech talk promised an iPad raffle, free food from Shalimar ("**Four Stars** on yelp.com") and "sweet schwag." Yelp is an aggressive player in the increasingly expensive recruiting wars to find the next tech superstar. "Having a second event today is a great way to have peo- line of people, you only get a minute or so to talk to each individual person. You can only communicate so much information in that time." The solution: Lure students back with a tech talk from experts, four-star Indian food and fairly good odds at leav- ing with an iPad. The scene almost makes one forget the realreason-they're here. "We do most of our hiring directly out of college," Chess says. "That's always been our drive." The job market for most college graduates is grim as 81 percent of recent graduates spent over six months looking for work, and many of the jobs they eventually found didn't require a degree, according to a 2011 study conducted by Rutgers University's Bloustein School of Planning and Pub- lic Policy. But for those with computer science skills, the job mar- ket is strong, flushed with cash and only getting better. "The need for software is essentially infinite," said Computer Science Prof. Elliot Solloway. "Software is the gasoline, it's what makes the engine run and companies know that there's simply not enough good software devel- opers. No outsourcing to India or China is gonna solve the software problem and everybody wants good software people." Software engineering, computer science skills, web and mobile application production - a skill set referred to as "hacking" - is increasingly a necessity for jobs in a wide array of industries. As a result, companies have to do more and more to attract the best talent. And that means getting 19-year-old students to come to your tech talk instead of Google's down the hall. One student put it well: "People are giving out crazy shit to come interview." "Engineers are the pretty girls in the room, and we want all of them to come to our party," says Danielle van Asch Prevot, a senior technical recruiter at Yelp. Give the pretty girls an iPad, and hope they come work for your company to build the next billion-dollar innova- tion. The astonishing part The 48-Hour Mobile Apps Hackathon is taking place later in the week, and Prof. Solloway - who specializes in mobile technologies and their application in education - is already excited about the weekend of programming he's organized. With the advent of the Apple, Android and Blackberry app marketplaces, it's now become possible to write a com- mercially viable piece of software - whether it's one that helps you find a parking spot or check into all your social media accounts - in 48 hours. Solloway offers a course where students build an app over 10 weeks. At the Hack- athon, teams compete in rapid app development - a 48-hour pizza-and-caffeine-fueled marathon. "People always say it's tough to get experience," says Engineering senior Prashanth Sadajivan, who participated be on-the-job experience, but it's building experience." Sadajivan's hacking teammate Torehan Sharman, also an Engineering senior, says the time constraint "forces" teams to focus on simplicity and speed. "The businesses and the people that are hiring are all real- ly looking for this, like, (ability) to go from idea to a product," Sharman, a former Daily photographer, says. The lights at the computer lab are dim as approximately 60 hackers - a handful of them women - drift in before the 6 p.m. kick off. "Here's plates; who needs plates?" Towers of pizza boxes are quickly demolished as students settle in. When enough people gather, Holloway asks students to introduce themselves. He speaks with his hands when sit- ting - in online videos, he often has a smartphone in one to point at with the other - and enthusiastically gestures with full arms while standing to address the room. Hackers should first "slow-ly" say their names and address not what business they're building, but "what problem are you going to solve?" This year, the-48-Hour Mobile Apps Hackathon is spon- sored by Walmart, who has sent several representatives for the weekend. Solloway explains the significance of the recruiters making the trek to the University: "Walmart is coming from Bettonville, Arkansas to Ann Arbor, Michigan to sponsor a hackathon because they're hoping to be able to hire some good software people." He almost sings the last three words, the excitement for his students palpable. "We want to make sure that we're getting the top talent to build our business up to compete" with companies like Google, says Ellen Sloneker, a senior recruiter for the super- store. Walmart wasn't always sponsoring sleepovers. "In the past, Walmart did not go out recruiting. We actu- ally had a few sets of schools we went to," said Paul Antony, a vice president heading the company's store systems. But Walmart is evolving with the times. Large companies such as Walmart are in the process of playing with their mas- sive amounts of data to better gauge customer shopping hab- its. "For someone who's really interested in statistics or big data - a big buzzword - it's pretty appealing and it's pretty cool," said Max Seiden, an Engineering senior. This semester, Walmart is looking to fill S0 internship and 50 full-time onsitions from the University and other schools. The recruiters will check in several times over the week- end. The hackers are here to impress. Back at the Hackathon, students split into project teams. Freshmen nervously standing on the outer edges of the computer lab are chided by Solloway to reach out and meet new people. Mountain Dew and Domino's pizza are guzzled down. A bag of baby carrots sits untouched. The degree "You can't really be a hacker without collaborating," Seiden says. "With the exception of, like, savants, who are just insane - just like pillars of programming - for the most part you really have to work with other people, bounce ideas around." He's sitting next to Engineering senior Guarav Kulkarni, with whom he founded Michigan Hackers, a community of software savvy students whose goal is to "solve problems through the innovative use of technology," according to its Facebook page. Seiden's page lists "Broke the Internet" on his timeline of major 2012 events. Presumably, the Hackers